Banking on Europe

The project at a glance

Start date:

01 Jan 2022
Duration in months:

36
Funding:

FNR / UK Economic and Social Research Council
Principal Investigator(s):

David HOWARTH

About

This research project, which is funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council and Luxembourg’s National Research Council (FNR) INTER scheme aims to generate new knowledge among academics and policymakers about the evolution and accountability of pan-European public financial institutions. Institutions with the authority to raise funds on financial markets to provide grants, loans or guarantees were present at the outset of the European Communities and were part of European responses to the economic crises of the 1970s, the reuniting of Europe in the 1990s and the euro crisis in the 2010s. They are now pivotal to the EU’s COVID-19 response. As pan-European public financial institutions grow in importance, they face calls for greater accountability to governments, parliaments and NGOs. And yet, there is limited political science research on either the evolution or accountability of these bodies. The project’s findings will generate new knowledge on: (1) the evolution and accountability of pan-European public financial institutions since 1950; (2) who is driving these developments and what this means for accountability; and (3) how accountable these bodies are in practice and how their accountability can be strengthened.

^{Image at the top: © uni.lu/fhse-en/events/public-conference-banking-on-europe-holding-pan-european-public-borrowers-to-account}